


Of Poets and Pickpockets

by TheLordOfLaMancha



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alan Seeger, Edgar Allan Poe References, Gwendolyn Brooks - Freeform, In a roundabout kind of way, Jehan is a thief, Jehanparnasse Week 2017, M/M, Mary Oliver, Montparnasse is a poet, Poets featured:, Rated T for Theft, Richard Wilbur, Robert Frost, Role Reversal, william shakespeare - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-10
Updated: 2017-11-10
Packaged: 2019-01-31 12:52:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12682284
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheLordOfLaMancha/pseuds/TheLordOfLaMancha
Summary: A simple role reversal.Montparnasse decides to study poetry so he can understand what Jehan is talking about, and Jehan decides to become a thief to steal something Montparnasse has always had his eye on. There's lots of poetry.





	Of Poets and Pickpockets

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Jehanparnasse Week Day 4: Role Reversal, albeit more than a week late.
> 
> Thanks to sunfreckle for loving this ridiculous idea enough to encourage me to finish it, and to my beta Browen for laughing at all my terrible jokes and helping me find enough poetry Montparnasse would like in order to finish this.
> 
> A list of featured poets is included at the end of this work (and in the tags).

Montparnasse and Jehan strolled down the rainy street, watching their fuzzy reflections in the shop window glass. What an odd pair they made. Montparnasse fought to keep his black on black ensemble dry beneath the reaches of an equally black umbrella, sidestepping puddles in his polished Italian shoes. And then there was Jehan, looking like they were born for the rain, splashing freely in their bright yellow rain boots and multi-coloured raincoat, water droplets collecting on their eyelashes.

“ _For when I came to man’s estate,_ ” Jehan sing-songed. “ _With hey, ho, the wind and the rain; ‘Gainst knaves and thieves men shut their gate, for the rain it raineth every day.”_

“You know,” Montparnasse replied, coming to a stop in front of a particular shop window. “Sometimes I wish I knew what you were talking about.”

“It’s from _Twelfth Night_ ,” Jehan explained, stopping next to the thin shadow of a thief. “Shakespeare. Have you never seen it?”

“I’ve never seen a play, Jehan.” Jehan looked scandalized. But Montparnasse missed his reaction as he stared dreamily at a coat hanging in the shop window.

Jehan matched two and two, glanced between Montparnasse and the jacket. He had the terrible sense of déjà vu, as though he had seen this jacket somewhere before.

“Not that I support your terrible habits,” Jehan commented. “But if you want it that much, why don’t you just… take it?”

“Can’t,” Montparnasse said simply.

“ _Can’t_?” Jehan laughed. “What? Is this too difficult of a challenge for the best thief in the Patron-Minette?”

“That’s actually Claquesous, but I’m glad you think so highly of me,” Montparnasse quipped with a sly smile, and Jehan playfully pushed him a little.

“No, I used to work here once,” Montparnasse continued, gesturing to the glass window. “Stole ninety percent of the store. But there’s still people who work here who recognize my face. And it’s a small shop.”

“Oh, only ninety percent,” Jehan teased.

“The other ten percent wasn’t worth the effort,” Montparnasse said simply, as they continued strolling down the street.

Jehan simply shrugged.

“How much do you think it costs anyways?” Jehan asked. “If a thief thinks about these things.”

“Not so much that you’d have to be the Queen of England,” Montparnasse explained. “But enough that you’d at least have to be aristocracy.”

Jehan knew where he had seen the coat before.

“ _When that I was and a little tiny boy_ ,” Jehan whispered. “ _With a hey, ho, the wind and the rain; A foolish thing was but a toy, for the rain it raineth every day._ ”

~.~

Montparnasse felt out of place in the auditorium, though most of the people there were nearly his age. He could not tell you the last time he set foot in a school, and the very atmosphere harkened back to the more unpleasant parts of his youth.

But he was doing this for Jehan, he reminded himself. He was clever. He could learn. Not that any of his teachers had ever thought so.

Montparnasse settled into a seat in the far back corner of the class, and braced himself for… well to be perfectly honest, he wasn’t entirely sure what was coming.

“Welcome to Introduction to Poetry, everyone,” the Professor called from the front of the auditorium, bringing order to the class. “As you know, this is an open elective, meaning it’s accessible to all fields of study. What we’re going to be learning here is how to read poetry, how to understand poetry, and how to find meaning in it.”

Truth be told, Montparnasse didn’t understand half the things that came out of Jehan’s mouth, but they sounded beautiful. And as a connoisseur of beautiful things, the thief desperately wanted to understand.

“We’re going to jump right in, so if you don’t mind reading the poem I have here up on the overhead, that would be great, and we’ll then open a discussion.”

“ _We real cool. We left school_ ,” a student read out loud to the class. “ _We lurk late. We strike straight. We sing sin. We thin gin. We Jazz June. We die soon._ ”

Montparnasse had to cover his mouth to keep from bursting into laughter. This poem was so contrary to anything Jehan had ever whispered to him in their quiet hours alone, but the thief absolutely adored it. Montparnasse could almost picture Gueulemer writing this poem, and it was the most absurd picture.

Immediately following the class, Montparnasse officially enrolled in it. Later that evening, he printed out the poem and tacked it to Gueulemer’s fridge.

~.~

“Eponine,” Jehan called after an ABC meeting one evening. “I could use your help with something.”

“Sure, what’s up?” Eponine asked, sliding into the booth seat next to Jehan.

Jehan shifted uncomfortably, and couldn’t look Eponine in the eye.

“I want you to teach me how to pickpocket?” Jehan asked sheepishly.

“You want me to _what?_ ” Eponine replied. “Jehan, you know I turn a blind eye to you dating Montparnasse, but I swear, if he’s getting you to do anything criminal…”

“This request is entirely for my own gains,” Jehan insisted, and then immediately regretted his word choice.

“Jehan what are you trying to steal?” Eponine pressed, and Jehan floundered.

The facts were these. Jehan was ninety percent sure that the jacket Montparnasse kept eyeing on Rue Saint-Honoré could be found hanging in his father’s closet. And he was one hundred percent sure his father would not miss it.

The problem? His father kept the closet under lock and key due to the other valuables he kept there. A key he always kept in his left pocket.

“Nothing of importance,” Jehan half lied. “I just want to try to out pickpocket Montparnasse.”

Eponine snorted. “Then you’ve got your work cut out for you. But you do have one advantage.”

“What’s that?” Jehan asked.

“Montparnasse likes you,” she said. “He’ll have his guard down.”

Jehan blushed.

“Look, there’s really only two secrets to pickpocketing,” Eponine explained. “Distraction and resisting the urge to grab things properly.”

“Whatever do you mean?”

After demonstrating to Jehan a couple ways of slipping things out of pockets using unusual hand positions, Jehan felt more confident.

“Alright eager beaver,” Eponine laughed. “Go try and steal Bossuet’s phone from his pocket. He’ll just assume he lost it again if he notices it missing.”

When Jehan returned hardly five minutes later holding the giant brick monstrosity in its this-could-reasonably-expect-to-survive-a-nuclear-blast case, Eponine whistled.

“You’re a natural, kid. Maybe you stand more of a chance than I thought.”

~.~

It had become increasingly difficult to explain where he was going every Wednesday afternoon, but Montparnasse was absolutely enjoying himself. And perhaps, more shockingly, he was _learning_.

They were bundled up together against the cold November wind in Jehan’s bed, the poet idly tracing Montparnasse’s collarbones.

“ _You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting_ ,” Jehan began to whisper softly. “ _You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves._ ”

And here was the difference. Before now, Montparnasse would have just muttered something about how nice that sounded, and Jehan would sigh and cuddle closer.

But now, the words settled into Montparnasse’s mind and sparked something decidedly different. For the first time, he understood what Jehan was implying, what Jehan was thinking about as he passively muttered lines of poetry.

With a devilish smirk, Montparnasse rolled Jehan over to kiss him.

“Gladly,” Montparnasse breathed between kisses, and Jehan smiled.

~.~

“[Bonjour Marguerite, c’est Jean](https://translate.google.com/#auto/en/Bonjour%20Marguerite%2C%20c%E2%80%99est%20Jean),” Jehan spoke over the phone to the maid who had answered on the other end of the line. “[Je veux parler avec ma maman, s’il vous plait.](https://translate.google.com/#auto/en/Je%20veux%20parler%20avec%20ma%20maman%2C%20s%E2%80%99il%20vous%20plait.)”

There was a pause as the line was connected elsewhere.

“’Allo?” came the voice on the other end of the line.

“Bonjour Maman,” Jehan replied. “Would you be agreeable to a visit from me this afternoon?”

And that was why Jehan pulled the suit out from the back of his closet with a sigh. He knew Montparnasse was sitting out in the living room, smoking out the window. He knew how he was going to react to seeing Jehan dressed to the nines, and he didn’t fancy it.

Montparnasse whistled low and _stared._ Jehan squirmed.

“That’s not mine, is it?” Montparnasse asked. “I know I sometimes leave things here in hopes that you may rediscover how to dress yourself, but this one isn’t familiar.”

“It’s not,” Jehan finally managed to say under the full brunt of Montparnasse’s attentions. “It’s mine.”

“ _You_ own _this?_ ” Montparnasse asked incredulously. “Well we’ll certainly have to get you more of it. I could get used to this.”

Jehan glared.

“Not that I don’t absolutely adore your sweaters and your floral jeans…” Montparnasse backtracked. “It’s just that I much prefer to see them on your floor.”

Jehan blushed viciously and Montparnasse laughed.

“Though in this,” Montparnasse continued. “I don’t think we’d even need to take off our clothes.”

Jehan buried his face in his hands and Montparnasse drew Jehan into a hug.

“I know you hate it, _mon chou_ ,” Montparnasse whispered. “I can’t believe you’re going out like this though. Wherever are you going?”

“To visit my mother,” Jehan mumbled into Montparnasse’s shoulder. “And I’m not in the mood to piss her off with how I dress.”

Montparnasse nodded, pulling away. “Want me to walk with you?”

Jehan shook his head. “Maybe I’ll let you borrow this sometime. Just don’t get blood on it. It costs more than I care to admit.”

~.~

With Jehan out of the apartment, though most certainly not out of his mind, Montparnasse decided to set foot in another place he had not been in years.

A library.

He had a paper due, and he had his feet kicked up disgracefully on a table, though no one seemed to mind so long as his nose was buried deep in a book. He eventually had to give up and ask a librarian to help him find the ones that were now stacked precariously next to his feet on the desk. Theory on and the works of a writer named Edgar Allen Poe.

Jehan had once read him _The Raven_. Though of course, he didn’t know that’s what it was called at the time. But he had listened in rapt fascination, and Jehan had laughed and said he always figured Montparnasse would like Poe. He said one day he would read Montparnasse the rest.

Between this and that, the day never came, and Montparnasse had now read past _The Raven_ and onto other dark and macabre things. And also onto something Montparnasse usually scoffed at. _Love poems._

But one, just one made him stop. He read:

_And all my days are trances,_  
And all my nightly dreams  
are where thy grey eye glances,  
And where thy footstep gleams --  
In what etheral dances,  
By what eternal streams.

And he remembered walking by the river, a few paces behind Jehan. The poet was skipping with reckless abandon along the bank, hoping dangerously from rock to rock and humming _Amazing Grace_.

Montparnasse had smiled despite the bright sunshine, and Jehan had looked back at him and…

Oh it felt like a dream.

And Montparnasse understood.

~.~

“Now tell me, my dear,” his mother said over tea. “Have you met a fine young lady at that university of yours, yet?”

Jehan thought of Montparnasse and fidgeted. He hadn’t brought this up yet and that wasn’t the plan for the day.

“Not at the university, _maman_ ,” he settled for. “But I have many friends at the university. You may have met some of them…  the children of Monsieur Enjolras and Monsieur Courfeyrac?”

“Ah yes,” she said. “Such fine boys. You’ve always had such excellent taste in friends. I’m sure they are also making their parents proud.”

Jehan wondered absently if Enjolras’ parents knew about Grantaire and just how much time Enjolras spent protesting. He coughed uncomfortably.

“Is _Pere_ at home?”

“He’s in the study.”

The pickpocketing had gone much easier than Jehan had expected. His father was curled up in his chair around a book and Jehan simply had to drape himself around his father’s shoulders, as though leaning down to peruse the book as well.

“ _Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice_ ,” Jehan recited from memory, slipping his hand into his father’s open pocket. “ _From what I’ve tasted of desire, I hold with those who favor fire._ ”

“ _But if it had to perish twice,_ ” his father finished, turning in the chair to face Jehan just as the poet was slipping his hand back into his own pocket. “ _I think I know enough of hate to say that for destruction ice is also great and would suffice._ ”

“Robert Frost,” Jehan supplied.

“You know,” his father said. “If I didn’t read you so much of this nonsense as a child, perhaps you would have studied law instead of literature.”

“I don’t imagine so,” Jehan admitted. “I believe I always would have loved poetry.”

“Perhaps your right. It always did suit you,” his father said. “And we gave you name that just sounds like a poet. Jean Prouvaire.”

Jehan smiled.

“I hope whoever has presently been keeping your fancy appreciates your words,” his father continued.

“I think they do,” Jehan admitted.

His father raised an eyebrow. “So there _is_ someone.”

Jehan froze and blushed.

“It’s alright, Jehan,” his father said softly. “Though I really wish you’d just tell your mother. Or hell, bring them here. At least maybe then she’d shut up about it.”

“They’d feel out of place,” Jehan eventually replied, when they found their voice again.

His father snorted. “With your mother around, the Queen of England would feel out of place.”

Jehan laughed.

~.~

In the library, Montparnasse had long abandoned the books in favour of an empty page he had ripped out of the back of one and a stub of a pencil he had found abandoned two desks over. He was focussed intently, carefully copying out each word, each letter his mind supplied. When he felt finished, he stuffed the scrap of paper in his pocket and left.

~.~

Taking the jacket was harder. His parents, occupied with their own tasks, hardly noticed Jehan sneaking into their bedroom and unlocking the closet in question. In fact it was as simple as taking the particular jacket carefully off of its hanger, but then Jehan was standing in the room holding the jacket…

And had no idea how to leave the house with it. He had not planned this far. His heart was hammering in his chest as he stood there holding this black bundle of fabric that probably cost more than a year of his tuition. This jacket that he was just going to _take._

Admittedly, from his parents, who probably wouldn’t care, but _still_.

He thought about switching the jacket with his own, but his suit was blue and the jacket was black, and his parents would find it suspicious of him to leave without saying goodbye. He thought about just walking out with it and seeing if his parents would even notice. But they would certainly notice that.

Jehan’s mind reeled. _And all this for a silly gift_ , he thought.

And that was it.

Tossing the jacket on the bed, Jehan searched the house for some kind of wrapping and came back to the room carrying a gift bag and an armful of wrapping paper. Carefully cushioning the jacket in the paper he tucked it into the bag.

Okay, so now the jacket was concealed… but Jehan hadn’t arrived carrying anything. It would be weird to leave with something, right?

The light coming from the large window flickered as the wind blew some leaves across the side of the house, and before he knew it, Jehan was opening the window and sticking his head out into the cold. Down below was a collection of rosebushes.

“I’m sorry, ‘Parnasse,” Jehan muttered before dropping the bag out the second story window.

~.~

Montparnasse arrived home to find Jehan in a baggy, oversized sweater and bright yellow jeans, tending to multiple small cuts on their face in the bathroom mirror. The suit that had caught the thief’s attention that morning was pooled on the floor looking rather worse for wear.

“What the fuck?” Montparnasse swore. “What the hell happened? Are you alright? Who do I have to kill?”

“You will be killing no one,” Jehan chided. “I simply suffered from a difficult altercation with a rosebush. There are new roses in the vase by the window and a present for you sitting on the coffee table.”

Montparnasse clucked his tongue and plucked the alcohol wipe from Jehan’s fingers, tending to the cuts on Jehan’s face with practiced ease.

The thief was focussed intently on Jehan, and the poet thought back to what Eponine had told him the other day.

_I wonder_ , Jehan thought, and slipped his hand into Montparnasse’s pocket. If the thief noticed, he didn’t show it. Jehan’s hand closed around a scrap of paper and he slipped it out and up into his sleeve just as Montparnasse tossed the alcohol wipe into the bin.

“Now,” Montparnasse said, looping his arms around Jehan’s waist and kissing the tip of his nose. “What’s this about a present?”

Jehan led him to the living room and presented the now torn and dishevelled gift bag.

“Ta da!” Jehan announced as he handed it to Montparnasse.

“Did this bag also have an altercation with a rosebush?” he asked.

“Yes,” Jehan said simply and Montparnasse raised his eyebrow.

While the thief was distracted digging through the layers of paper in the bag, Jehan slipped his spoils out of his sleeve and unfolded it to see what it was. He supposed it went against the whole spirit of pickpocketing to get caught, but he wanted Montparnasse to know he’d been tricked.

But the poet frowned as he read Montparnasse’s messy scrawl, and didn’t look up when Montparnasse exclaimed, “You did _not_!”

Montparnasse stood and pulled on the jacket, marvelling at the fit. It wasn’t until he looked up to see Jehan’s reaction did he notice the piece of paper in the poet’s hand and paled.

“This is beautiful,” Jehan declared. “Who is this ‘Parnasse? I don’t recognize it.”

“How did you…” Montparnasse trailed off as Jehan started to read aloud.

“ _What a rich thing it must be to hear hushed whispers from plushed lips,”_ Jehan whispered reverently. “ _And words formed in the hearths of silver tongues. Alas, bring me your Whitmans and your Chaucers, that the world might be filled with stories breathed by the hearts of men who hear them on the wind.”_

And Montparnasse stared, simply watching Jehan rise from the couch with grace, his hair free from his braid and tumbling over his shoulder, his voice rich as the finest silver.

“I… I wrote it,” Montparnasse said quietly, fidgeting with the sleeves of his new jacket. “I’ve been taking poetry classes.”

Jehan smiled and the tense set of Montparnasse’s shoulders eased.

“I adore it,” Jehan replied, clutching the page to his chest. “Will you show me more?”

“I don’t have any more,” Montparnasse admitted. “But…”

The thief ran over to the roses in the vase, and selecting a few, snapped their stems shorter so he could weave them into Jehan’s hair.

“ _Your hands hold roses always in a way that says they are not only yours,”_ Montparnasse recited, gingerly placing a rosebud in Jehan’s palm. “ _The beautiful changes in such kind ways, wishing ever to sunder things and things’ selves for a second finding, to lose for a moment all that it touches back to wonder._ ”

Jehan caught Montparnasse’s hand, and with his other coming up to cup Montparnasse’s face, kissed him slowly and languidly. They stood like that together for a time in the fervent silence, simply watching each other’s eyes, Jehan’s thumb brushing over Montparnasse’s red lips, and the poem and the rose scattered on the floor. Montparnasse gently ran his hand along Jehan’s waist, his other twisting together with Jehan’s fingers at their side.

With a sigh, Jehan leant his forehead on Montparnasse’s and whispered, “ _God knows ‘twere better to be deep pillowed in silk and scented down, where love throbs out in blissful sleep, pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath, where hushed awakenings are dear._ ”

Jehan unravelled their fingers to pull Montparnasse closer, but the thief pulled away instead.

“ _Mon amour_?” Montparnasse asked. “How did you get this jacket? You couldn’t possibly have spent this much…”

“I stole it,” Jehan said simply. “Just like I stole the poem from your pocket.”

“ _You_ stole _this_?” Montparnasse asked, incredulous. “From the shop on Rue Saint-Honoré?”

“No, no,” Jehan dismissed. “I stole it from my father. I may have dropped it out the window from the second story… hence the rosebush.”

“Well then, my charming thief,” Montparnasse replied. “Thank you.”

“No, thank you,” Jehan insisted, picking up the poem from the ground. “My delightful poet.”

Together they smiled and laughed.

“Oh by the way,” Jehan added, “You’re invited to tea next week at my parents place.”

“I’m _what?_ ”

“Maybe don’t wear that jacket.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for making it through that ridiculousness.
> 
> Here's the list of featured poetry by order of appearance:
> 
> 1\. ["When That I Was and a Little Tiny Boy,"](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50427/song-when-that-i-was-and-a-little-tiny-boy-with-hey-ho-the-wind-and-the-rain) from _Twelfth Night,_ William Shakespeare:  
>  _For when I came to man’s estate, With hey, ho, the wind and the rain..._  
>  2\. ["We Real Cool"](https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/we-real-cool) by Gwendolyn Brooks:  
>  _We real cool. We left school..._  
>  3\. ["Wild Geese"](http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/geese/geese.html) by Mary Oliver:  
>  _You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves._  
>  4\. ["To One in Paradise"](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/50462/to-one-in-paradise) by Edgar Allen Poe:  
>  _And all my days are trances,/ And all my nightly dreams/ are where thy grey eye glances,/ And where thy footstep gleams..._  
>  5\. ["Fire and Ice"](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44263/fire-and-ice) by Robert Frost:  
>  _From what I’ve tasted of desire, I hold with those who favor fire._  
>  6\. "Wordsmiths" is something I wrote, and is the poem Montparnasse writes:  
>  _Alas, bring me your Whitmans and your Chaucers..._  
>  7\. ["The Beautiful Changes"](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43055/the-beautiful-changes>) by Richard Wilbur:  
>  _Your hands hold roses always in a way that says they are not only yours..._  
>  8\. ["I Have a Rendezvous With Death"](https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/i-have-rendezvous-death) by Alan Seeger:  
>  _God knows ‘twere better to be deep pillowed in silk and scented down..._
> 
> Further suggested reading of poems Montparnasse probably enjoyed but I couldn't fit in:  
> \- ["To the Snake"](http://www.poetrybyheart.org.uk/poems/to-the-snake/) by Denise Levertov:  
>  _Green Snake — I swore to my companions that certainly you were harmless!_  
>  \- ["Vagabonds"](https://nonbunkjunk.wordpress.com/2010/06/30/vagabonds-by-langston-hughes/) by Langston Hughes:  
>  _We are the desperate / Who do not care..._  
>  \- The last two verses of Leonard Cohen's ["Hallelujah"](https://genius.com/Leonard-cohen-hallelujah-lyrics) always remind me of Jehanparnasse:  
>  _Maybe there's a God above, but all I ever learned from love was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you..._  
>  \- ["What Am I, After All?"](http://www.bartleby.com/142/232.html) by Walt Whitman:  
>  _What am I, after all, but a child, pleas’d with the sound of my own name?_
> 
> If you want to chat poetry or jehanparnasse or anything else really, you can find me on tumblr at fishandchipsandvinegar.


End file.
